There’s starting the year strong, and there’s whatever I managed to do this year, in making a photograph I was incredibly pleased with, while also incurring a consequence I can’t seem to escape from in some of my projects.
January 26th, Ilford Delta 400, using a 21mm lens and no correct viewfinder in favour of flash to illuminate as best as possible (as ideal flash results still seem to elude me), inamongst shirtless bodies as a heavier rain turns to more acceptable drizzle, I made this photograph.
I think it’s a good photograph. Once I would have preferred a half step back to catch those missing hands in the top left, maybe a wider flash coverage to avoid the vignette and have more balance on the right. But the looming, ominous Clock Tower, the chance arrangement of reflected light from the raindrops, the balance of the crowd on the left and the lone volunteer on the right engaging with onlookers, overall makes for a strong image.
I will use this photograph in my project about English Islam, and I will feature it in other contexts as well. The image is well supported in brief context with a video I made at the same time, using chest mounted GoPro – watch the video on youtube here
The iconography is bold, but that isn’t always a good thing. A brief clip I recorded from this scenario wen’t semi-viral, and was taken out of context, with alternate narratives projected and overlaid, with captions including “London has fallen”, speaking to an invasion, to these people as an active threat to culture, to safety, or whatever else people are afraid of these days.
The direct juxtaposition of one of, if not the most iconic British landmark against this Shia Muslim mourning event made it too easy for people to see what they wanted to see, not necessarily what I wanted to show them.
There is only so much I can do to correctly contextualise my stories, so that people don’t bring too much of their own meaning, so they can actually learn something from me rather than using what I am making to reenforce their existing beliefs.
This photograph and the response to it shaped quite a bit more of the photography I engaged with for the rest of the year, and the way I was presenting my content online, especially on social media where things are remixed and spread very quickly if any leverage can be achieved from it.
I wouldn’t change anything about this photograph, or the way I made it, but I am aware of the process behind which the photograph itself became the “least” of it as my peripheral contextual creations began to overshadow. More people have seen that instagram reel than the YouTube video, or the photograph itself. Hopefully, down the line, it will be the photograph that takes on its own life and purpose in the way I intended. Calling this my most divisive photograph is more a personal relationship, as the division is both from the nature of the story and coverage, but also the divide between the aspect I value, the photograph, and the aspect that escapes it, the social media compression and amplification chamber.
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